Tag: Alan Watts

In the Aggi-Vacchagotta Sutta, the Buddha cautions Vacchagotta, the wanderer, against adhering to the “thicket of views,” i.e., forming an opinion one way or the other about a variety of metaphysical topics (Is the cosmos eternal or infinite? Are materiality and consciousness the same or different? Do Buddhas still exist after death?) The Buddha tells Vachagotta that any position one can take:

“is a thicket of views, a wilderness of views, a contortion of views, a writhing of views, a fetter of views. It is accompanied by suffering…. and does not lead to disenchantment, dispassion, cessation; to calm, direct knowledge, full Awakening…”

Anyone can have opinions. They come cheap. I have a million myself — If you want one just ask.

How’s President Obama doing? Gay marriage: good or bad? Are karma and rebirth real? “The Tree of Life”: Cinematic magic or pretentious bore? It’s amazing how much of an expert I am on everything!

In case it’s somehow escaped your notice, the Buddhist Blogosphere might more properly be called an “opinion-o-sphere.” The “Maha Teachers” Council: Promise or menace? Stephen Batchelor: Visionary or turncoat? The Mindfulness Movement: diluting or spreading the Dharma? Buddhism: Religion or philosophy? The Pali canon: Authentic words of the Buddha? Genpo Roshi: Sufficiently contrite?

We Buddhists are as contentious a group as any on the planet. One might have hoped we would have turned out better — but we seem to be suspiciously human.

It’s fun to have opinions — they keep the conversation lively. In any case, it’s impossible not to form them. The question is whether it’s possible not to be overly attached to them.

Zen Master Seung Sahn wrote a book entitled Open Mouth Already a Mistake[1], and was famous for admonishing students to “only keep ‘Don’t-Know’ mind.” In a similar vein, Larry Rosenberg reported seeing a bumper sticker years ago which read: “Don’t believe everything you think,” and thought it offered sage advice. Shunryu Suzuki Roshi’s “Beginner’s Mind” is the touchstone of American Dharma, but admonitions to take opinions lightly have been part of practice forever. Bankei (1622-1693) advised us not to “side with ourselves,” just as the Buddha himself warned millennia ago of “the thicket of views.”

The truth is, all of our interesting and colorful opinions seem to have very little to do with the progress we make, or fail to make, in our practice. If anything, they separate us from the clear, still place we aspire to. Our practice is best when we have little or no concern for what others do or think — and even or especially what we ourselves think — and pay attention, instead, to how we unfold in our own unique dance with the present moment.

That’s not to say there are no such things as facts, reality, or truth. It’s just that reality is often more slippery, nuanced, and multifaceted than what we’re able to capture in our net of words — and that the deepest and most meaningful truths often elude language altogether. Alan Watts used to joke that his business was “effing the ineffable.”

As we say in Zen, there is just “this.”

That’s my opinion for today.

[1] Barry Briggs has pointed out this attribution is in error. While Seung Sahn coined the phrase, the book is actually by his Dharma heir, Wu Kwang (Richard Shrobe). See Barry’s correction in the comments section.↩

Random Quote

What is it that opens the gate to joy in our ordinary, day-to-day lives? I’ve been calling it awakeness and awareness: the simple practice of sitting quietly, breathing in and out, dropping our obsessive thoughts and resistance to the freshness of the moment that is exactly here. It is amazing, our resistance to tapping into the joy that is like the blue sky surrounding this earth.